ISSN 0806-198X

Ibn Taymiyya on the Incoherence of the

Theologians’ Universal Law:
Reframing the Debate between Reason and
Revelation in Medieval Islam

CARL SHARIF EL-TOBGUI (Brandeis University, Waltham, MA)

Abstract
This article analyzes the overarching themes and goals of Ibn Taymiyya’s roughly forty arguments against
the philosophers’ and theologians’ “Universal Law” for the figurative interpretation of scripture, to which
he dedicates approximately 500 pages of his 10-volume Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa’l-naql. While Ibn
Taymiyya himself presents these arguments in a disjointed and seemingly random fashion, this study
demonstrates that by carefully breaking down, regrouping, and reconstructing them, we can discern a
coherent attempt on Ibn Taymiyya’s part to reconfigure the very terms of the debate between reason and
revelation in medieval Islam in several important ways. Firstly, he deconstructs what it means for reason to
“ground” our knowledge of revelation. Next, he redefines the opposition at stake not as one of “reason vs.
revelation,” but as a purely epistemological question of certainty vs. conjecture, with both reason and
revelation serving as potential sources of both kinds of knowledge. Finally, he builds on this insight to
replace the dichotomy “sharʿī–ʿaqlī,” in the sense of “revelational vs. rational,” with the dichotomy “sharʿī–
bidʿī ” in the sense of “scripturally validated vs. scripturally non-validated,” arguing that revelation itself
both commends and exemplifies the valid use of reason and rational argumentation. By this move, Ibn
Taymiyya attempts to introduce a new paradigm in which it is the epistemic quality of a piece of knowledge
alone that counts, simultaneously subsuming reason itself into the larger category of “sharʿī,” or
revelationally validated, sources of knowledge.

Key words: Ibn Taymiyya, reason and revelation, Universal Law (al-qānūn al-kullī), taʾwīl, figurative inter-
pretation, Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa’l-naql

I. Introduction

In his massive, 10-volume Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa’l-naql, or “The Refutation of the
Contradiction of Reason and Revelation,” Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) attempts
to settle once and for all a central debate that had raged among Muslim theologians and
philosophers for more than six centuries. This debate centers on the nature, role, and limits
of human reason and its proper relationship to, and interpretation of, Divine Revelation. In
the Darʾ taʿāruḍ, Ibn Taymiyya—who has been characterized as “one of the most original
and systematic thinkers in the history of Islam” 1—attempts to transcend the reason vs.

1 Yossef RAPOPORT and Shahab AHMED, “Ibn Taymiyya and His Times,” in Ibn Taymiyya and His

Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies • 18 (2018): 63-85

© Carl Sharif El-Tobgui, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
 Carl Sharif El-Tobgui

revelation dichotomy altogether by breaking down and systematically reconstituting the

very categories in terms of which reason was conceived and debated in medieval Islam.
In concrete terms, the debate over reason and revelation among classical Muslim
scholars centered primarily on the question of when and under what circumstances it was
admissible to practice taʾwīl, or figurative interpretation, on the basis of a “rational
Page | 64 objection” (muʿāriḍ ʿaqlī) to the plain sense of a Qurʾānic verse or passage. Of particular
concern in this respect were those passages containing descriptions of God whose literal
meaning seemed to entail tashbīh, an unacceptable assimilation of God to created beings.
Some such attributes as were (apparently) affirmed in revelation were held by various
groups—particularly the philosophers, the Muʿtazila, and later Ashʿarites—to be rationally
indefensible on the grounds that their straightforward affirmation would amount to tashbīh.
In such cases, a conflict was thought to ensue between the clear dictates of reason and the
equally clear statements of revelation, resulting in the unsettling notion that there exists a
fundamental contradiction between revelation and reason—both of which have nevertheless
been accepted as sources of true knowledge.
The question of how to deal with such “rational objections” to the plain sense of
revelation elicited various kinds of responses from both philosophers and theologians,
ultimately culminating in the “Universal Law” (al-qānūn al-kullī), which Ibn Taymiyya
paraphrases on the very first page of the Darʾ taʿāruḍ as it had come to be formulated by the
time of the famous Ashʿarite theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209) in the 6th/12th
century. This Law, in brief, requires that in the event of a conflict between reason and
revelation, the dictates of reason be given priority and revelation be reinterpreted
accordingly via taʾwīl, or figurative interpretation. This prescription is justified on the
consideration that it is reason that “grounds” our assent to the truth of revelation, such that
any gainsaying of reason in the face of a revealed text would undermine both reason and
revelation together.
In pursuit of his mission to resolve the conflict between reason and revelation, Ibn
Taymiyya devotes roughly 500 pages of the Darʾ taʿāruḍ (most of volumes I and v) to the
elaboration of around thirty-eight separate arguments2 (wajh, pl. wujūh—lit., “aspects” or
“viewpoints”) against the logical coherence of the theologians’ Universal Law and the
integrity, in purely theoretical terms, of the premises and assumptions upon which it is
based. These thirty-eight arguments concern the validity of the Universal Law alone and do
not touch upon any substantive philosophical or theological debates per se. In the remainder
of the work, Ibn Taymiyya takes up what seems to be practically all of the actual instances

Times, ed. Yossef Rapoport and Shahab Ahmed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 19.
2 The text itself lists forty-four arguments, six of which, however, are not “arguments” directed against
the Universal Law itself. Rather, they address substantive philosophical and theological questions,
usually at such length that they end up trailing off into an extended disquisition on one topic after
another, eventually dissipating into the larger body of the text. Argument 19, for instance, begins on p.
320 of Vol. I and does not address the Universal Law at all. Rather, it takes up the philosophical
argument for the existence of God based on the temporal origination of movements and accidents (dalīl
ḥudūth al-ḥarakāt wa’l-aʿrāḍ), a discussion which then meanders from one topic to another over the
course of the next three volumes. It is not until one comes to the first page of Vol. V that one finally
reads, “al-Wajh al-ʿIshrūn” (‘Argument 20’), which is itself an extended substantive back and forth that
spans 200 pages, or half the volume.

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 Ibn Taymiyya on the Incoherence of the Theologians’ Universal Law

of alleged conflict between reason and revelation raised by various philosophical and
theological schools over the seven-century career of the Islamic intellectual tradition that
preceded him.
The purpose of the present article is to provide a presentation and analysis of Ibn
Taymiyya’s main arguments in the Darʾ taʿāruḍ against the theologians’ Universal Law,
attempting along the way to highlight the major epistemological renovations he seeks to Page | 65
accomplish in doing so. Through these arguments, he attacks both the Law’s logical
coherence, as well as the main epistemic categories and assumptions upon which it is
based. While Ibn Taymiyya himself presents his thirty-eight arguments in a disjointed and
seemingly random fashion, I demonstrate that by carefully breaking down, regrouping, and
reconstructing them, we can discern a coherent attempt on his part to reconfigure the very
terms of the debate on reason and revelation in medieval Islam. While past studies have
either analyzed in depth or else summarized one or several of Ibn Taymiyya’s arguments
against the Universal Law,3 none has attempted to provide an overall account of them and
to demonstrate the cumulative role they are meant to play at the heart of Ibn Taymiyya’s
magnum opus on reason and revelation in Islam.

II. Ibn Taymiyya on the Universal Law and the variety of responses it
has elicited

In the year 606/1209, fifty-four years prior to the birth of Ibn Taymiyya, the great Persian
Ashʿarite theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī passed away, leaving behind a massive body of
writings. Many of these writings were theological tracts aimed specifically at buttressing

3 See, e.g., Binyamin ABRAHAMOV, “Ibn Taymiyya on the Agreement of Reason with Tradition,” Muslim
World, 82.3 (1992); Nicholas HEER, “The Priority of Reason in the Interpretation of Scripture: Ibn
Taymīyah and the Mutakallimūn,” in Literary Heritage of Classical Islam: Arabic and Islamic Studies
in Honor of James A. Bellamy, ed. Mustansir Mir (in collab. with J. E. Fossum) (Princeton: Darwin
Press, 1993); and Ovamir ANJUM, Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan
Moment (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 202-10 for general summaries. J. Yahya
MICHOT, “Vanités intellectuelles… L’impasse des rationalismes selon le Rejet de la contradiction d’Ibn
Taymiyyah,” Oriente Moderno, 19, no. 80 (2001) translates and analyzes Argument 9, while idem, “A
Mamlūk Theologian’s Commentary on Avicenna’s Risāla Aḍḥawiyya, being a translation of a part of
the Darʾ al-Taʿāruḍ of Ibn Taymiyya, with introduction, annotation, and appendices,” Journal of
Islamic Studies, 14.2 (2003) translates and analyzes a part of Argument 20. Nadjet ZOUGGAR, “Inter-
prétation autorisée et interprétation proscrite selon le Livre du rejet de la contradiction entre raison et
révélation de Taqī l-Dīn Aḥmad b. Taymiyya,” Annales Islamologiques, 44 (2010) analyzes the intro-
ductory section of the Darʾ taʿāruḍ as well as Argument 16, while idem, “Aspects de l’argumentation
élaborée par Taqī l-Dīn Aḥmad b. Taymiyya (m. 728/1328) dans son livre du Rejet de la contradiction
entre raison et Écriture (Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql),” Arabica, 61.1-2 (2014) examines Arguments
1 through 5. The most recent contribution is Frank GRIFFEL, “Ibn Taymiyya and His Ashʿarite
Opponents on Reason and Revelation: Similarities, Differences, and a Vicious Circle,” The Muslim
World, 108 (2018), which provides a useful, extensive presentation of al-Ghazālī’s and al-Rāzī’s
elaboration of the Universal Law as an antecedent to Ibn Taymiyya’s critique, while also summarizing
and offering critical comments on this latter. Also relevant is M. Sait ÖZERVARLI, “The Qurʾānic
Rational Theology of Ibn Taymiyya and his Criticism of the Mutakallimūn,” in Ibn Taymiyya and His
Times, ed. Yossef Rapoport and Shahab Ahmed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 83-89.

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the position of the more textually conservative Ashʿarite school of theology against the
more rationalistically inclined Muʿtazilites. In one of his more influential theological
treatises, Asās al-taqdīs,4 al-Rāzī enunciates a so-called “universal law,” a statement re-
presenting a plea for truce on the part of Ashʿarite theologians in the ongoing battle between
reason and revelation. By al-Rāzī’s time, this “universal law” had won the approving nod of
Page | 66 the majority of his Ashʿarite colleagues, whose school of thought was steadily becoming the
standard, accepted formulation of Islamic theology in rationalistic terms throughout much
of the Islamic domains.5
The Universal Law, as paraphrased by Ibn Taymiyya at the very beginning of the Darʾ
taʿāruḍ,6 states:
If scriptural and rational indications, or revelation and reason, or the obvious
outward meaning of the revealed texts and the definitive conclusions of rational
thought—or other such ways of phrasing it—are in conflict, then either: (1) they
must both be accepted, which is impossible as this would violate the law of non-
contradiction [claiming both p and -p]; (2) they must both be rejected, which is also
impossible as this would violate the law of the excluded middle [claiming neither p
nor -p]; (3) precedence must be given to revelation, which is impossible since
revelation is grounded in reason, such that if we were to give priority to the former
over the latter [that is, to revelation over reason], this would amount to a rejection of
both reason and [by extension] that which is grounded by reason [namely,
revelation]. One must, therefore, (4) give precedence to reason over revelation, then
either make figurative interpretation (taʾwīl) of scripture [in accord with reason], or
else negate the apparent meaning of scripture but refrain from assigning to it a
definite, particular figurative interpretation (tafwīḍ).7

4 Fakhr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-RĀZĪ, Asās al-taqdīs, ed. Aḥmad Ḥijāzī al-Saqqā (Cairo: Makta-
bat al-Kulliyyāt al-Azhariyya, 1406/1986). Tariq Jaffer, in a recent monograph on al-Rāzī, points out
that al-Rāzī himself refers to this work, which is devoted entirely to the question of taʾwīl, as “Taʾsīs al-
taqdīs,” the title that is also listed for it in Ḥājjī Khalīfa’s Kashf al-ẓunūn. See Tariq JAFFER, Rāzī:
Master of Qurʾānic Interpretation and Theological Reasoning (New York: Oxford University Press,
2015), 58-59, n. 19; (Muṣṭafà b. ʿAbd Allāh) ḤĀJJĪ KHALĪFA, Kashf al-ẓunūn ʿan asāmī al-kutub wa’l-
funūn, ed. Muḥammad Sharaf al-Dīn Yāltaqāyā and Rifʿat Bīlgeh al-Kilīsī, 2 vols. (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-
Turāth al-ʿArabī, [1360]/1941), I: 333.
5 For an overview of Ashʿarite principles of interpretation (taʾwīl) from al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085) to al-
Jurjānī (d. 816/1413) when dealing with apparently conflicting rational and scriptural evidence, see
HEER, “The Priority of Reason,” 181-88.
6 See Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad IBN TAYMIYYA, Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa’l-naql, aw Muwāfaqat ṣaḥīḥ al-manqūl
li-ṣarīḥ al-maʿqūl, ed. Muḥammad Rashād Sālim, 11 vols. (Riyadh: Dār al-Kunūz al-Adabiyya, 1399/
1979). For a discussion of antecedent statements of this Law in al-Ghazālī and al-Rāzī and the relation-
ship of Ibn Taymiyya’s paraphrase of the Law in the Darʾ taʿāruḍ to these antecedents, see GRIFFEL,
“Ibn Taymiyya and His Ashʿarite Opponents,” 15-30.
7 Cited at Darʾ, I: 4 See al-RĀZĪ, Asās al-taqdīs, 220-21. Al-Rāzī cites the same basic principle in similar
terms in other works as well. See, e.g., al-RĀZĪ, al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya min al-ʿilm al-ilāhī, ed. Aḥmad
Ḥijāzī al-Saqqā, 9 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1407/1987), IX: 116-17; idem, Muḥaṣṣal afkār
al-mutaqaddimīn wa’l-mutaʾakhkhirīn min al-ʿulamāʾ wa’l-ḥukamāʾ wa’l-mutakallimīn, ed. Ṭāhā ʿAbd
al-Raʾūf Saʿd (Cairo: Maktabat al-Kulliyyāt al-Azhariyya, 1978[?]), 51; idem, Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl fī dirāyat

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 Ibn Taymiyya on the Incoherence of the Theologians’ Universal Law

Ibn Taymiyya cites an alternative formulation of this law by al-Rāzī in another work,
Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl fī dirāyat al-uṣūl, where al-Rāzī adds a significant detail—central to Ibn
Taymiyya’s overall concern in the Darʾ taʿāruḍ—namely, that “(the truth of) revelation can
only be established through rational means, for it is only through reason that we can
establish the existence of the Creator and know (the authenticity of) revelation.” 8 Ibn
Taymiyya laments that al-Rāzī and his followers have made this into a “universal law” Page | 67
(qānūn kullī) when interpreting scripture as it relates to God’s attributes and other issues
where they deem reason to be in contradiction with what scripture affirms. Some of them—
including al-Rāzī himself—add to this the notion that scriptural indicants or proofs (adilla
samʿiyya) are, in fact, inherently incapable of engendering certainty and therefore cannot be
relied upon in matters of religious knowledge.9 Others before them, Ibn Taymiyya tells us,

al-uṣūl, ed. Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Fūda, 4 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Dhakhāʾir, 1436/2015), I: 143; idem, al-
Arbaʿīn fī uṣūl al-dīn, ed. Aḥmad Ḥijāzī al-Saqqā, 2 vols. (Cairo: Maktabat al-Kulliyyāt al-Azhariyya,
1406/1986), I: 163-64; idem, al-Masāʾil al-khamsūn fī uṣūl al-dīn, ed. Aḥmad Ḥijāzī al-Saqqā (Beirut:
Dār al-Jīl; Cairo: al-Maktab al-Thaqāfī, 1410/1990), 39-40; idem, Maʿālim uṣūl al-dīn, ed. Ṭāhā ʿAbd
al-Raʾūf Saʿd (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1404), 48; and idem, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb (al-Tafsīr al-kabīr),
32 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1401/1981), XXII: 6-7. See HEER, “The Priority of Reason,” 184-85 for an
English translation and discussion of the passages cited here in al-Rāzī’s Asās al-taqdīs and al-Masāʾil
al-khamsūn and JAFFER, Rāzī, 89-94 for a translation and discussion of these same two passages, as well
as the passage cited here from Mafātīḥ al-ghayb. On the notion of tafwīḍ, or “consigning the meaning
[of problematic scriptural passages] to God” and not proffering a specific figurative interpretation
thereof, see Binyamin ABRAHAMOV, “The ‘Bi-lā Kayfa’ Doctrine and Its Foundations in Islamic
Theology,” Arabica, 42.3 (1995). On the Universal Law, see also Rodrigo ADEM, “The Intellectual
Genealogy of Ibn Taymīya” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 2015), 210-29.
8 Cited at Darʾ, V: 330-31. See al-RĀZĪ, Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl, I: 143 and similar at idem, al-Masāʾil al-
khamsūn, 39-40. For statements by other major Ashʿarite theologians to the effect that reason is the only
means by which the authority of scripture can be established, see, e.g., ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-BAGHDĀDĪ,
Kitāb Uṣūl al-dīn (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿat al-Dawla, 1346/1928), 23; Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-JUWAYNĪ, Kitāb
al-Irshād ilà qawāṭiʿ al-adilla fī uṣūl al-iʿtiqād, ed. Muḥammad Yūsuf Mūsà and ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Munʿim
ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1369/1950), 358-60; and Abū Ḥāmid al-GHAZĀLĪ, al-
Iqtiṣād fī ’l-iʿtiqād, ed. ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Khalīlī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1424/2004),
115. For English translations of the passages cited here from al-Juwaynī’s Irshād and al-Ghazālī’s
Iqtiṣād, see HEER, “The Priority of Reason,” 185-86. For a more extensive list of sources—including for
the later Ashʿarites Shams al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī (d. 749/1348), Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (d. 792/1390), and
al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413), as well as for Muʿtazilites who also held this doctrine—see ibid., 193-
94, n. 21 and 194, n. 22.
9 See, for example, Darʾ, V: 335, where Ibn Taymiyya cites a passage from al-Rāzī’s Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl, a
few pages after his statement of the Universal Law cited above, to the effect that “scriptural indicants
cannot be relied upon in matters of (certain) knowledge (al-adilla al-naqliyya lā yajūzu ’l-tamassuk
bihā fī ’l-masāʾil al-ʿilmiyya).” See al-RĀZĪ, Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl, I: 146 (where, however, al-Rāzī has “al-
masāʾil al-ʿaqliyya,” not “al-masāʾil al-ʿilmiyya”); idem, Maʿālim, 25; idem, Muḥaṣṣal, 51; and idem,
Arbaʿīn, II: 253-54 (where, however, al-Rāzī does state that scriptural indicants can yield certainty if
backed up by mutawātir reports; see similar at idem, Maṭālib, IX: 117). For further discussion, see Carl
Sharif EL-TOBGUI, “The Hermeneutics of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī,” in Coming to Terms with the Qurʾān:
A volume in honor of Professor Issa Boullata, McGill University, ed. Khaleel Mohammed and Andrew
Rippin (North Haledon, New Jersey: Islamic Publications International, 2008), 139-40 and, more
extensively, JAFFER, Rāzī, 77-83, 102-4. Notwithstanding al-Rāzī’s qualification in Arbaʿīn concerning
the ability of scriptural indicants to yield certain knowledge if corroborated by tawātur, Jaffer
concludes—primarily on the basis of Asās, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, and Maʿālim—that al-Rāzī fundamentally

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had already articulated this “universal law,” such as al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), who em-
ployed it in his short treatise Qānūn al-taʾwīl10 in answering questions posed to him by
students of his such as Abū Bakr b. al-ʿArabī (d. 543/1148). This latter articulated an
alternative formulation of the law in a lengthy work also with the same title 11 based on the
method followed by al-Ghazālī’s teacher, al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085),12 as well as those
Page | 68 before him, such as al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1013).13 In sum, Ibn Taymiyya explains, the

denies the ability even of mutawātir reports to yield certitude (see ibid., 80-83), thus assigning “even the
strongest of ḥadīth reports a low epistemic value” (ibid., 82). [These conclusions thus concur with the
earlier findings of Ignaz GOLDZIHER, “Aus der Theologie des Fachr al-dīn al-Rāzī,” Der Islam, 3
(1912): 230-37 and Roger ARNALDEZ, “L’œuvre de Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī : commentateur du Coran et
philosophe,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, Xe-XIIe siècles, 3 (1960): 315.] Jaffer reports further that
the radicalness of al-Rāzī’s skepticism vis-à-vis ḥadīth reports was matched only by the “maverick
Muʿtazilite” Abū Isḥāq al-Naẓẓām (d. c. 221/836), the “only thinker who expresses such a degree of
doubt about prophetic reports” and whose “views were considered radical even by Muʿtazilite
standards.” JAFFER, Rāzī, 81, n. 71 and 83, n. 77. Van Ess credits Ibn Taymiyya with having possessed
a “well-informed insight” into the discussions that had taken place regarding the probity and proof value
of scriptural indicants, specifically in his al-Furqān bayn al-ḥaqq wa’l-bāṭil. Ibn Taymiyya, he tells us,
knew that al-Rāzī was among those who “polemicized most strongly against scriptural proofs,” which
he held to be fundamentally inconclusive. See Josef VAN ESS, Die Erkenntnislehre des ʿAḍudaddīn al-
Īcī: Übersetzung und Kommentar des ersten Buches seiner Mawāqif (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag,
1966), 409. On these grounds, van Ess likewise characterizes al-Rāzī’s position as “an extreme case”
(‘ein Extremfall’). Ibid., 410.
10 Al-GHAZĀLĪ, Qānūn al-taʾwīl, ed. Maḥmūd Bījū (n.p., 1413/1992), 19, 21. Related discussions can be
found at idem, Iqtiṣād, 116 and idem, Fayṣal al-tafriqa bayna ’l-Islām wa’l-zandaqa, ed. Maḥmūd Bījū
(Istanbul[?]: Dār al-Bayrūtī, 1413/1993), 47-48. [For a translation and introduction to this work, see
Sherman A. JACKSON, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s
Fayṣal al-Tafriqa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).] For an analysis of al-Ghazālī’s approach to
metaphorical interpretation, see Frank GRIFFEL, Al-Ghazālī’s Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2009), 111-22, esp. 111-16 and, more expansively, idem, “Al-Ghazālī at His Most
Rationalist: The Universal Rule for Allegorically Interpreting Revelation (al-Qānūn al-Kullī fī t-
Taʾwīl),” in Islam and Rationality: The Impact of al-Ghazālī. Papers Collected on His 900th Anni-
versary. Volume 1, ed. Georges Tamer (Leiden: Brill, 2015). For a translation of al-Ghazālī’s Qānūn al-
taʾwīl, see Nicholas HEER, “Al-Ghazali: The Canons of Taʾwil,” in Windows on the House of Islam:
Muslim Sources on Spirituality and the Religious Life, ed. John Renard (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1998).
11 See al-Qāḍī Abū Bakr IBN AL-ʿARABĪ, Qānūn al-taʾwīl, ed. Muḥammad al-Sulaymānī (Jeddah: Dār al-
Qibla li’l-Thaqāfa al-Islāmiyya, 1406/1986), 646-47. See also idem, al-ʿAwāṣim min al-qawāṣim, ed.
ʿAmmār Ṭālibī (Cairo: Maktabat Dār al-Turāth, 1394/1974), 231.
12 See, for instance, al-JUWAYNĪ, Irshād, 358-60.
13 See, for instance, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-Ṭayyib al-BĀQILLĀNĪ, Kitāb al-Tamhīd, ed. Richard
Joseph McCarthy (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-Sharqiyya, 1957), 259, where we read that “it is necessary to
divert speech from its apparent meaning if rational and scriptural indicants rule out its being used in
accordance with the primary sense” (innamā yajibu ṣarf al-kalām ʿan ẓāhirihi idhā kānat dalāʾil al-ʿaql
wa’l-samʿ tamnaʿu istiʿmālahu ʿalà mā warada bihi). Ibn Taymiyya in general thinks very highly of al-
Bāqillānī, no doubt since he was close in time to al-Ashʿarī and therefore still recognizably part of the
old-school Ashʿarīs, or “mutaqaddimūn” (with al-Juwaynī seen as the bridge over to the later doctrine).
The Universal Law (“al-qānūn al-kullī ” or “qānūn al-taʾwīl”)—as later articulated by the likes of al-
Juwaynī, al-Ghazālī, and al-Rāzī—does not appear in explicitly crystallized form in al-Bāqillānī, though
the idea and principle of taʾwīl are present (as in the quote from K. al-Tamhīd above). See the comments
of Muḥammad Sulaymān (editor) at Abū Bakr IBN AL-ʿARABĪ, Qānūn al-taʾwīl, 246.

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adherents of every doctrine have established for their school an analogous rule: they take as
true and objective knowledge that which they deem reason has come to know, then
subordinate revelation to this alleged “knowledge” and (re)interpret it accordingly.
Such reinterpretation of scripture as prescribed by the Universal Law has conventionally
been carried out in one of two principal ways: either through figurative interpretation
(taʾwīl), normally defined as assigning to a revealed text a meaning other than its overt or Page | 69
obvious (ẓāhir) sense in accordance with a conclusion reached through reason, or through
suspension of meaning (tafwīḍ), normally defined as declaring the obvious meaning invalid
but refraining from providing any specific alternative interpretation, conferring (“tafwīḍ ”)
its true meaning unto God.

III. Specious rationality and its discontents: Reason in a cul-de-sac14

Ibn Taymiyya begins his case against the Universal Law by observing that the principle
according to which a person should give precedence to the deliverances of his own rational
faculty over the obvious meaning of the revealed texts is a position not governed by a
universally applicable rule (qawl lā yanḍabiṭ), since each kalām theologian or philo-
sopher—all of whom are in dispute with each other over what they call “rational
knowledge”—claims that he knows by rational necessity, or through the process of rational
investigation, a fact whose opposite his contender claims also to be known by necessity or
through rational investigation. For instance, both those who negate (some of) the Divine
Attributes and the Divine Decree (qadar)—Ibn Taymiyya singles out here the Muʿtazila
and those who have followed them from among the Shīʿites—as well as those who affirm
these claim to do so on the basis of allegedly conclusive rational arguments.
Moreover—and this is a cardinal tenet of Ibn Taymiyya’s doctrine on reason and
revelation—the further a school of thought is from the Sunna, 15 the greater is the internal
disagreement among its adherents as to what the dictates of reason actually are. This point
is essential. For Ibn Taymiyya, reason and revelation coincide in a very fundamental sense,
with the natural result that the more a faction moves away from what reason and revelation
essentially overlap in affirming, the more that faction experiences internal dissention,
divergence of opinion, and incoherence in terms of rationality itself, in addition to finding

14 Based on Argument 9 (Darʾ, I: 156-70).

15 Ibn Taymiyya’s use of the term “Sunna” is perhaps closest to the Greek-derived English term
“orthodoxy,” literally “correct belief.” I shall retain, however, Ibn Taymiyya’s original term, since it
renders more transparent precisely what “correct belief” is for our author and how it is to be determined.
Whereas “orthodoxy” normally implies a body of doctrine backed up by the ecclesiastical authority of
an institutional church—an institution that has no direct equivalent in Islam—“correct belief” for Ibn
Taymiyya is synonymous with the beliefs and practices of the first three generations (qurūn) of
Muslims—that of the Companions (ṣaḥāba), the Successors (tābiʿūn), and the Successors of the Succes-
sors (tābiʿū al-tābiʿīn)—particularly the very first generation comprised of the Prophet’s own contemp-
oraries. As we shall discover, Ibn Taymiyya’s insistence that sound reason and authentic revelation
always concur and never contradict entails, as a corollary, that the first generations were in possession
simultaneously of a uniquely normative—and hence quintessentially orthodox—understanding of sacred
scripture and of the soundest rational methods for reasoning about matters divine.

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itself at increasingly greater odds with revelation. In other words, one is either fully in line
with both pure reason (ʿaql ṣarīḥ) and an essentially straightforward reading of authenti-
cated revelation (naql ṣaḥīḥ), or one drifts away from both reason and revelation together
and ends up not only contradicting revelation and explaining it away through an in-
creasingly liberal application of the principle of taʾwīl, but also falling prey to increasingly
Page | 70 intractable rational contradictions, divergences, and improbabilities at the same time.16
This principle can best be illustrated in the form of the following “Taymiyyan
pyramid”:
Sound Reason
Authentic Revelation
unicity, clarity, certainty (yaqīn)
Ashʿarīs.......................
(increasing ikhtilāf
Muʿtazila................................. and doubtfulness)
Falāsifa..................................................

Allegorization Sophistry
)‫(القرمطة يف النقليات‬ )‫(السفسطة يف العقليات‬
Truth is that point of unicity, clarity, and certainty (yaqīn) at which the testimony of sound
reason and that of authentic revelation are fully concordant. According to the pyramid, the
Muʿtazila, for example, exhibit greater internal discord than the “affirmationists” (muth-
bitūn) among the kalām theologians such as the Ashʿarīs, as evidenced by the extent of dis-
agreement between the Muʿtazilite school of Basra and that of Baghdad—though adherents
of the former, Ibn Taymiyya tells us, are closer to the Sunna (i.e., to “orthodoxy”) than the
latter and are therefore more internally united than their rivals from Baghdad. The Shīʿa
evidence even greater internal discord than the Muʿtazila, since they are even further
removed from sunnaic orthodoxy. As for the philosophers, Ibn Taymiyya chides, it is
almost impossible to find anything upon which they collectively agree. In point of fact,
their internal divergences and differences are greater than those that separate from each
other the three different religious communities of Muslims, Jews, and Christians.17 Indeed,
says Ibn Taymiyya, their differences concerning astronomy alone—which is an arithmetic,
mathematical subject that figures among the most objective and accurate of their sciences—

16 See Darʾ, I: 157, lines 4-5.

17 Ibn Taymiyya is apparently referring here not to the internal divergences within each confessional
community, but rather saying that the divergences and differences that separate the three communities
from each other are still less than those that divide the philosophers against each other, in other words,
that Muslims, Jews, and Christians—despite the (often fundamental) differences which separate them—
are nevertheless in agreement with each other on a considerably greater number of issues than are the
philosophers, all of whom claim, despite their wild divergences of opinion, to have arrived at the
various doctrines they hold through pure reason on the basis of rationally demonstrable and unim-
peachable proofs and arguments.

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are greater than the differences among any of the various sects of Muslims. As for meta-
physics, the leading philosophers themselves aver that they are unable to reach any kind of
certitude with respect to it whatsoever. Rather, their discourse on metaphysical matters
reduces to little more than hazarding judgements of likelihood and the weighing of prob-
abilities.18
To underline the specious nature of much of kalām discourse, Ibn Taymiyya appeals to Page | 71
several of the major rational theoreticians (nuẓẓār) themselves in witness of the futility of
their life-long efforts to attain theological certainty through the practice of dialectical
theology. We read, for example, the following two lines by ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Shahrastānī
(d. 548/1153) emphasizing how such theoreticians often ended up with nothing but
confusion and perplexity:
I have made the rounds of the gatherings of the learned
And cast my eyes upon the haunts of erudition;
Yet never did I see but men perplexed, with their chins in their hands
Or gnashing their teeth in regret.19
Ibn Taymiyya also cites nine lines of similar import from Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd (d. 656/1258),
“one of the foremost Shīʿite thinkers with Muʿtazilite and philosophical leanings.”20 He also
points out that the illustrious latter-day Ashʿarite theologian and legal scholar Sayf al-Dīn
al-Āmidī (d. 631/1233) in most of his books suspends judgement on many of the central
issues of theology, declaring spurious the arguments of various sects but remaining in the
end perplexed and unable to take a position himself. 21 Similar is the case of the celebrated
7th/13th-century logician and judge of Persian origin Abū ʿAbd Allāh Afḍal al-Dīn al-
Khūnajī (d. 646/1248), best known for his logical treatise Kashf al-asrār ʿan ghawāmiḍ al-
afkār,22 who was reported to have said on his deathbed: “I die having learned nothing but

18 Ibid., I: 156, line 4 – 159, line 5. Ibn Taymiyya refers his reader to a number of sources to back up his
point regarding the disarray of the philosophers, including al-Ashʿarī’s Maqālāt ghayr al-Islāmiyyīn and
al-Bāqillānī’s Daqāʾiq al-ḥaqāʾiq, both of which, he explains, contain many times more in the way of
the disputes and differences among the philosophers than al-Shahrastānī (in his Kitāb al-Milal wa’l-
niḥal) and others have mentioned. Al-Bāqillānī’s Daqāʾiq is, unfortunately, lost. (See editor’s note at
ibid., I: 6, n. 3.)
19 “la-qad ṭuftu fī tilka ’l-maʿāhidi kullihā, wa-sayyartu ṭarfī bayna tilka ’l-maʿālimi / fa-lam ara illā
wāḍiʿan kaffa ḥāʾirin, ʿalà dhaqanin aw qāriʿan sinna nādimi.” Ibid., I: 159, lines 7-11. M. Sālim, the
editor of the Darʾ taʿāruḍ, also cites (at ibid., I: 159, n. 2) a two-line response to al-Shahrastānī by the
latter-day Yemeni scholar Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Amīr al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 1182/1768), who retorted:
“laʿallaka ahmalta ’l-ṭawāfa bi-maʿhadi ’l-Rasūli wa-man lāqāhu min kulli ʿālimi / fa-mā ḥāra man
yuhdà bi-hadyi Muḥammadin, wa-lasta tarāhu qāriʿan sinna nādimi”:
Perhaps your rounds have missed the learned circle of the Prophet,
And every man of knowledge who encountered him;
For he who is led by the guidance of Muḥammad is never perplexed,
Nor ever found gnashing his teeth in regret.
20 Ibid., I: 161.
21 Ibid., I: 162, lines 3-4.
22 See Afḍal al-Dīn al-KHŪNAJĪ, Kashf al-asrār ʿan ghawāmiḍ al-afkār, ed. Khaled El-Rouayheb (Tehran:
Iranian Institute of Philosophy; Berlin: Institute of Islamic Studies, Free University of Berlin, 2010).

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that the possible is dependent upon the impossible (al-mumkin muftaqir ilà ’l-mumtaniʿ);
yet dependency (iftiqār) is a negative property, thus I die having learned nothing at all.” 23
Ibn Taymiyya contrasts the drastic agnostic pessimism expressed in the numerous
quotations above with what he describes as the calm assuredness of those who know and
who cling resolutely to the “original, pristine, orthodox, scripturally revealed prophetic
Page | 72 method.”24 Such men are thoroughly familiar both with this method and with the doctrines
that are claimed to be in contradiction with revelation—such as the claim of the createdness
of the Qurʾān or the purely symbolic nature of the Divine Attributes—whereupon they can
easily recognize the invalidity of such doctrines by virtue of the deliverances of what Ibn
Taymiyya calls “pure natural reason” (al-maʿqūl al-ṣarīḥ), which is always found to be in
full conformity with what is affirmed by authentic revelation (al-manqūl al-ṣaḥīḥ). How-
ever, those who delve into the elements of philosophy and discursive theology said to
contradict revelation without possessing full knowledge of the contents and various
concomitant implications (lawāzim) of the revealed texts, as well as of the doctrines alleged
to be at odds with them, are unable to arrive at any certain knowledge in which they can
feel confident, but rather end up in confusion and perplexity. The most preeminent of them
are even at a loss to provide fully conclusive arguments for the existence of the Creator
Himself, a topic of central concern to Ibn Taymiyya in the Darʾ taʿāruḍ which merits a
separate study on its own. Some, he says, end up in contradiction, like al-Rāzī, while others
are forced to suspend judgement on the matter, like al-Āmidī. Indeed, such thinkers often
mention a number of positions of various schools, claiming that truth lies in one or the other
of them (though without necessarily being able to determine which one), while all the
various positions mentioned, declares Ibn Taymiyya confidently, can in fact be demon-
strated on the basis of pure natural reason to be false and without rational foundation. 25

IV. Ibn Taymiyya’s project: Refuting the Universal Law

If, as Ibn Taymiyya sees it, the rational processes at work have led to such an abusive
“interpretation” of scripture and simultaneously to a rational cul-de-sac in which reason
itself breaks down, then wherein does he think a solution could lie? This is the question to
which Ibn Taymiyya has dedicated the entirety of his magnum opus and which shall occupy
us in the remainder of this article. Ibn Taymiyya’s project in the Darʾ taʿāruḍ, at its most
essential, consists in undermining and refuting the very Universal Law itself, along with the
premises and assumptions it takes for granted, since he considers this Law the primary
culprit in having brought about the intellectual and religious disorder he inherited at the
turn of the eighth Islamic century. It bears stressing that, for Ibn Taymiyya, the project of

23 Darʾ, I: 162, lines 4-7. Cited also in Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad IBN TAYMIYYA, Kitāb al-Radd ʿalà ’l-manṭi-
qiyyīn, al-musammà ayḍan Naṣīḥat ahl al-īmān fī ’l-radd ʿalà manṭiq al-Yūnān, ed. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad
Sharaf al-Dīn al-Kutubī (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Rayyān, 1426/2005), 114, as well as in Jalāl al-Dīn al-
SUYŪṬĪ’s (d. 911/1505) abridgement of this work, Jahd al-qarīḥa fī tajrīd al-Naṣīḥa. See Wael B.
HALLAQ, Ibn Taymiyya against the Greek Logicians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 42.
24 “al-ṭarīqa al-nabawiyya al-sunniyya al-salafiyya al-Muḥammadiyya al-sharʿiyya.” Darʾ, I: 164, line 1.
25 See ibid., I: 164.

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 Ibn Taymiyya on the Incoherence of the Theologians’ Universal Law

undoing the Universal Law is imperative in order not only to salvage the integrity of
revelation but to rescue reason as well, as both have been, in his view—and as schematized
in the Taymiyyan pyramid above (p. 70)—dangerously compromised primarily by a faulty
and abusive use of the rational faculty that he seeks to redress and rehabilitate—to the
ultimate benefit of both revelation and reason.
In order to refute the Universal Law, Ibn Taymiyya puts forth no fewer than thirty- Page | 73
eight26 arguments (wujūh, sing. wajh,27 lit., “aspects” [of incoherence]), located primarily in
Volumes I and V of the Darʾ taʿāruḍ, as to why the Law, as it came to be formulated, is
logically unsound and, therefore, theoretically baseless. As is typical of the writings of Ibn
Taymiyya, a number of these thirty-eight arguments overlap with each other, some seem-
ingly forming an expanded or summarized version of others. Furthermore, the arguments as
Ibn Taymiyya has presented them do not follow any specific logical order, but rather are
given one after the other as so many discrete objections to the Universal Law. For the
purposes of the presentation below, therefore, rather than simply listing the arguments in
the order in which Ibn Taymiyya has presented them, I have grouped them by theme and
argument, paraphrasing in each of the following sections a coterie of arguments that share a
unifying theme or that seem intended by their author to accomplish a common objective.
The following sections cover specific criticisms meant to accomplish three identifiable dis-
crete goals and to shift the inherited paradigm of reason and revelation in three distinct
ways.

V. On reason “grounding” our knowledge of revelation28

Ibn Taymiyya endeavors to undermine the Universal Law’s main premise, namely, that if
precedence be given to revelation over reason, this would amount to a rejection of the very
thing that grounds it—namely, reason—which would fatally undercut revelation itself. By
“grounding” here is meant that reason is the basis on which rests our knowledge of the truth
and validity of revelation; that is, reason is said to ground revelation not ontologically, but
epistemologically.

26 Ostensibly forty-four, but see explanation at n. 2 above.

27 Tariq Jaffer discusses al-Rāzī’s use of the wajh (translated as “viewpoint” or “argument”) which, in
addition to the masʾala (which he renders as “question” or “point of investigation”), lies at the center of
his dialectical method—a method which the philologist, littérateur, and biographer Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn b.
Aybak al-Ṣafadī (d. 764/1363) characterizes as unprecedented. Jaffer explains that al-Rāzī uses the wajh
both to corroborate and to critique philosophical arguments, and as a vehicle for recording and resolving
the shubuhāt, or objections/counterarguments, raised against a given position. See JAFFER, Rāzī, 27-29.
On the “dialectal turn” that occurred in during the 12th/6th century, see Frank GRIFFEL, “Between al-
Ghazālī and Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī: The Dialectical Turn in the Philosophy of Iraq and Iran During
the Sixth/Twelfth Century,” in In the Age of Averroes: Arabic Philosophy in the Sixth/Twelfth Century,
ed. Peter Adamson (London: The Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London,
2011).
28 The question of the manner in which revelation is “grounded” in reason is taken up primarily in
Arguments 3 (Darʾ, I: 87-133), 24 (V: 214-16), and 29 (V: 268-86).

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Ibn Taymiyya begins by challenging the philosophers’ and theologians’ notion of

precisely what is implied by our knowledge of revelation being “grounded” in reason. “We
do not concede,” he tells us, “that if precedence be given to revelation, this would amount
to impugning the very thing which grounds it, namely, reason.”29 This is so, he explains, for
if it is the knowledge that we acquire through reason that constitutes the epistemological
Page | 74 grounding upon which our knowledge of the truth and validity of revelation rests, it is
nevertheless the case that not everything known (or thought to be known) through reason
figures among that rational knowledge which authenticates revelation. The various objects
of knowledge apprehended through reason are innumerable, and knowledge of the validity
and truth of revelation is contingent, at most, upon that by which the veracity of the Prophet
Muḥammad and his prophetic mission can be determined. Relevant (rational) knowledge
here would be, for example, proof of the existence of God and His vindication of the
truthfulness of the Prophet through miracles, and the like. 30 The principal error of those
who call for adherence to the Universal Law, he explains, is that they make all forms of
rationally grounded knowledge one category with respect to validity and invalidity,
whereas a positive judgement regarding the validity of revelation, as we have seen, merely
requires the validity of that part of rationally grounded knowledge concomitant (mulāzim)
to it, not the validity of that part which runs counter to or negates (yunāfī) it.31
Ibn Taymiyya tells us further that those who have formulated and instituted (al-
wāḍiʿūna li-) the Universal Law, such as al-Ghazālī, al-Rāzī, and others, themselves
concede that our knowledge of the Prophet’s veracity is not contingent upon any putative

29 Darʾ, I: 87, lines 12-13.

30 It is significant that Ibn Taymiyya explicitly classifies knowledge of the existence of God, the reality of
prophecy, and the possibility of miracles all as propositions subject to verification through the use of
reason. In other words, he agrees that revelation is, in a fundamental manner, grounded in reason, for it
is by reason alone that we can test and confirm the most basic claims of revelation, that without which
scriptural revealed religion would simply have no plausibility to begin with. (GRIFFEL, “Ibn Taymiyya
and His Ashʿarite Opponents,” 36-37, has recently come to a similar conclusion.) These findings, further
elaborated throughout the rest of the current section, thus correct Nicholas Heer’s contention that “as a
Ḥanbalite traditionalist Ibn Taymīyah held firmly to the position that scripture was in no way dependent
on rational arguments, either for the establishment of its truth or for an explanation of its meaning…”
(HEER, “The Priority of Reason,” 191-92). In an earlier passage Heer remarks: “Scripture, he claims,
does not have to be proven true through the use of reason, as the theologians assert, because it itself
contains all the arguments necessary to support its principal doctrines.” Ibid., 188. The point that Heer
seems to miss here is that, according to Ibn Taymiyya, scripture does indeed rely on arguments—
rational arguments, naturally—to support its principal doctrines. This amounts to an admission that
reason is indeed necessary in establishing the authenticity and plausibility of scripture, a point that Ibn
Taymiyya, as will become clear throughout our treatment, fully concedes. In fact, he makes much of the
fact that scripture includes and advances rational arguments, trying to capture the rational “high ground”
for revelation away from the philosophers and mutakallimūn. Indeed, it would be important for a
separate study to examine in depth Ibn Taymiyya’s own rational proofs for the existence of God and the
possibility of miracles in contrast to those of the theologians and philosophers and, in doing so, to define
precisely what it is he means by that “reason” which is capable of doing so in a manner definitive
enough to lend the fundamental claims of scripture a baseline of rational plausibility. A detailed analysis
of such proofs, however, lies beyond the scope of the current article.
31 “wa-maʿlūm anna ’l-samʿ innamā yastalzimu ṣiḥḥat baʿḍihā ’l-mulāzim lahu lā ṣiḥḥat al-baʿḍ al-munāfī
lahu.” Darʾ, I: 91, lines 4-5.

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rational conclusions that are at odds with revelation. In fact, a great number of them,
including al-Ghazālī himself, in addition to al-Shahrastānī, al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d.
502/1108-9), and others, hold knowledge of the existence of God to be inborn, necessary
knowledge (fiṭrī ḍarūrī).32 In addition, Ibn Taymiyya maintains, revelation is itself replete
with rational arguments for the existence and almightiness of the Creator and His
corroboration, through miracles and signs, of the veracity of His messenger. Not only does Page | 75
that which revelation affirms of these matters not contradict, but rather congrues with
(yuwāfiq), the rational foundations on the basis of which we come to know the authenticity
of revelation, but indeed revelation itself, according to Ibn Taymiyya, provides far more
numerous—and, we are to understand, far more evincive—rational arguments for such
matters than we find in the books of the rational theoreticians themselves. Even the
majority of those who hold knowledge of the Creator to come about only through deliberate
reflection (naẓar)—as opposed to instinctively (bi’l-fiṭra)—concede, critically, that of the
various inferential methods available for arriving at knowledge of the authenticity of the
Prophet Muḥammad’s claim to prophethood, there indeed exist such as do not contradict
anything affirmed in the texts of revelation.33
In establishing this point, 34 Ibn Taymiyya reverses the Universal Law to show that the
opposite principle—that is, prioritizing revelation over reason in any case of conflict—can
be argued and defended in an exactly analogous manner, with the implied conclusion that if
it is rationally incoherent either to put reason above revelation or to put revelation above
reason, then the truth (which is always and intrinsically coherent) must lie in the fact that
there can be no bona fide contradiction between these two sources of knowledge, the
precise point Ibn Taymiyya is concerned to prove in the Darʾ taʿāruḍ. The opposite rule
would state:
If reason and revelation contradict, then revelation must be given priority over
reason, since reason has adjudged revelation veracious in everything it contains,
whereas revelation has not judged reason to be correct in all the various conclusions
to which it might come, nor is our knowledge of the authenticity of revelation

32 See, e.g., Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-SHAHRASTĀNĪ, Kitāb Nihāyat al-iqdām fī ʿilm al-kalām, ed.
Alfred Guillaume (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqāfa al-Dīniyya, 1430/2009), 118-19.
33 Al-Rāzī himself, Ibn Taymiyya informs us, is one of those who concur, as is evidenced by his
discussion of takfīr in his Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl, where he concludes that “it has been established that the
knowledge of the principles (uṣūl) upon the validity of which depends (our knowledge of the
authenticity of) the messengership of Muḥammad (may God bless him and grant him peace) is patent
and evident knowledge (ʿilm jalī ẓāhir), and scholars have only discussed these principles on account of
their responsibility to remove the doubts raised by those who would seek to invalidate them (al-
mubṭilūn). (Otherwise), it is firmly established that the foundations of Islam are patent and clear, and
that the proofs which establish them are mentioned in a comprehensive manner (ʿalà ’l-istiqṣāʾ) in the
Book of God, free of anything erroneously imagined to oppose them.” Darʾ, I: 96, lines 5-10. Al-RĀZĪ,
Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl, IV: 290-91. For Ibn Taymiyya’s full citation of al-Rāzī’s discussion of takfīr in his
Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl, see Darʾ, I: 93, line 6 – 96, line 10.
34 See Argument 6 (Darʾ, I: 138-44).

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dependent upon (mawqūf ʿalà) all of the several conclusions at which reason may
have arrived.35
This position, says Ibn Taymiyya, is better advised (awjah) than the previous position of
granting a blanket priority to reason over revelation, since reason indicates the truth of
Page | 76 revelation in a general and unrestricted sense (dalāla ʿāmma muṭlaqa). This is especially
true, Ibn Taymiyya elaborates, as the disparity between a prophet, on the one hand, and the
most intelligent and knowledgeable of ordinary men, on the other, is manifestly greater than
the disparity between, say, the master craftsmen of various trades and ordinary folk un-
schooled in the same trades. In fact, the difference involved is no less than a categorical
one, since theoretically any ordinary man could, by dint of sustained personal effort, attain
masterly knowledge of a given field, whereas prophethood is not to be attained through
personal striving, but rather is only bestowed by God upon those whom He has elected.36
In summary, Ibn Taymiyya endeavors through the set of arguments presented above to
undermine the Universal Law’s main premise, namely, that if precedence be given to
revelation over reason, this would amount to a rejection of the very thing that grounds
revelation—namely, reason—thereby fatally undercutting revelation itself. Ibn Taymiyya
challenges the philosophers’ and theologians’ notion of what it means for our knowledge of
revelation to be grounded in reason by arguing, in essence, that what we call reason does
not, as many fancy, constitute one undifferentiated category, such that impugning any of
the various conclusions reason is thought to have reached would amount to undermining all
of them. Rather, he contends, the various discrete conclusions reached through the rational
faculty are innumerable, and our knowledge of the validity of revelation is contingent, at
most, upon only those discrete elements of rational judgement by which, for example, we
may ascertain the veracity of the Prophet Muḥammad and the authenticity of his prophetic
mission. If this be the case, then imprecating other distinct conclusions of reason (such as
those that contradict certain discrete assertions of scripture) does not, as most theologians
and philosophers held, automatically undermine our confidence in the very rational faculty
itself and each one of its sundry conclusions, not least of which the rational basis by virtue
of which we have concluded the authenticity of revelation.

35 Ibid., I: 138, lines 1-3.

36 Ibn Taymiyya is citing here the orthodox theological position on the purely God-given and “non-
acquired” nature of the prophetic office, as opposed to the falāsifa’s interpretation of prophethood as an
essentially natural faculty analogous to the bursts of inspiration from beyond that may result from the
personal spiritual efforts of a practicing sage or mystic. For more on various conceptions of
prophethood in Islam, see Fazlur RAHMAN, Prophecy in Islam: Philosophy and Orthodoxy (New York:
Routledge, 2008).

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 Ibn Taymiyya on the Incoherence of the Theologians’ Universal Law

VI. Knowledge vs. conjecture: Conclusiveness is what counts37

The refutation of the Universal Law, Ibn Taymiyya declares, consists in showing the false-
ness of its premises. The Law, as enumerated in Section II above, is based on three
premises:
Page | 77
1. the actual existence (thubūt) of a contradiction between reason and revelation;
2. limiting the theoretically possible options for dealing with the alleged contra-
diction to only the four mentioned, namely: (a) accepting both contradictory
statements simultaneously; (b) rejecting both simultaneously; (c) prioritizing
revelation over reason as a rule; or (d) prioritizing reason over revelation as a
rule;
3. the invalidity of the first three alternatives in Premise 2, therefore:
Conclusion: the necessity of the fourth alternative, namely, giving priority as a rule
to reason over revelation and reinterpreting revelation accordingly.
Ibn Taymiyya rejects all three of these premises as invalid. His attempt to prove the falsity
of Premise 1 is the mission of the entire Darʾ taʿāruḍ. In the sections where he enumerates
the bulk of his arguments against the Universal Law, however, Ibn Taymiyya concentrates
on undermining Premise 2, which he does by refusing to concede the four-fold division of
the premise—namely, accepting both allegedly contradictory indicants, rejecting both,
giving unqualified precedence to the rational proof, or giving unqualified precedence to the
scriptural indicant. Instead, he holds, it may be that the rational proof is to be given priority
in some instances, while the scriptural indicant is to take precedence in others. How is this
so? Ibn Taymiyya explains: If two proofs or indicants contradict each other, regardless of
whether they are both scriptural, both rational, or one of them scriptural and the other
rational, it must be either that they are both conclusive (qaṭʿī), that they are both
inconclusive (ẓannī), or that one is conclusive and the other inconclusive. Should it turn out
that they are both conclusive (qaṭʿī), then it is theoretically impossible that they should
contradict regardless of whether they both be rational, both be scriptural, or one rational
and the other scriptural. It follows, therefore, that if two conclusive indicants were to be
contradictory, or if one of them were to contradict that which is indicated or established by
the other, this would entail a violation of the law of non-contradiction, which is impossible.
Rather, for any two indicants believed to be conclusive and that are also surmised to
contradict one another, it must necessarily be that one of them is not, in fact, conclusive, or
that the respective propositions they establish are not, upon closer scrutiny, in actual
contradiction.
Now, Ibn Taymiyya argues, should it turn out that one of the indicants is conclusive to
the exclusion of the other, then priority must be given to the conclusive indicant by the
consensus of all rational individuals (ʿuqalāʾ), regardless of whether it comes from scripture
or reason, since mere supposition cannot override certainty. If both indicants are merely
presumptive and inconclusive (ẓannī), then one must investigate which of them is more

37 Ibn Taymiyya’s development and discussion of the dichotomy “knowledge vs. conjecture” is located
primarily in Arguments 1 (Darʾ, I: 86-87), 2 (I: 87), 4 (I: 134-37), and 5 (I: 137).

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 Carl Sharif El-Tobgui

strongly founded and therefore more probative (rājiḥ), then prioritize the stronger one over
the weaker one by virtue of its superior probative value—regardless, once again, of its
epistemological origin (whether scriptural or rational). 38 It follows from this, therefore, that
the claim that one must give precedence in an absolute manner either to the scriptural or to
the rational proof on pain of violating either the law of non-contradiction or the law of the
Page | 78 excluded middle is a false claim, for there indeed exists a possibility other than the four
mentioned above, namely, that precedence be given to whichever of the two indicants is
either conclusive or, barring conclusiveness, more probative than the other, regardless
whether scriptural or rational. This last procedure, asserts Ibn Taymiyya, is the correct
one.39
The only possible objection to this rule, Ibn Taymiyya asserts, would be to maintain that
a scriptural indicant can never be conclusive. But this argument, quite apart from the fact
that it lacks validity,40 is of no use, for in this case, the indicant given priority would still be
prioritized on account of its being conclusive, not on account of its being rational nor on
account of its “grounding” of revelation, while those who adhere to the Universal Law have
made the primary basis on which they give priority to the rational indicant its alleged
grounding of revelation, a position that does not stand up to scrutiny. 41 Any rational person,
Ibn Taymiyya explains, would agree that if a conclusive and an inconclusive indicant

38 Darʾ, I: 78-79.
39 Ibid., I: 87, lines 5-11.
40 Ibn Taymiyya’s stance here runs contrary to the principle espoused by al-Rāzī, namely, that it is im-
possible to establish the fundamentals of religion (uṣūl al-dīn) in a conclusive (qaṭʿī) manner through
textual evidence, since reasoning (istidlāl) from scripture is dependent upon presumptive (ẓannī)—that
is, less than fully conclusive (qaṭʿī)—factors. Such “presumptive” factors include, for al-Rāzī: the
transmission of the lexicon, syntax, and morphology of the language; verification of the absence of
figurative usage (majāz), implicit signification (iḍmār), particularization of a general term (takhṣīṣ),
polyvalence (ishtirāk), or transposition of meaning (naql); and, beyond such linguistic and hermeneutic
concerns, establishing that there exists no valid rational objection (muʿāriḍ ʿaqlī) to the texts’ obvious
sense (ẓāhir al-naṣṣ). See, e.g., al-RĀZĪ, Asās al-taqdīs, 234-35 and idem, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr [Mafātīḥ al-
ghayb], 32 vols. ([Cairo]: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Bahiyya al-Miṣriyya, 1354-1357/1935-1938), XXIV: 181,
discussed at EL-TOBGUI, “The Hermeneutics of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī,” 139-40. Debilitatingly, however,
al-Rāzī holds that the knowledge that no rational objection exists is, in fact, impossible to come by,
since it is always conceivable that there might exist an intrinsically (“fī nafs al-amr”) valid rational
objection to what the Qurʾān states which simply has not occurred to the person encountering a given
Qurʾānic verse or ḥadīth report. See, e.g., al-RĀZĪ, Maṭālib, 116-17; Muḥaṣṣal, 51; Arbaʿīn, II: 251-54;
and Maʿālim, 25. Ibn Taymiyya states that in a work he wrote entitled Sharḥ awwal al-Muḥaṣṣal, he had
responded to al-Rāzī’s allegations that arguments deduced from scripture could never be definitive and
that he had argued, to the contrary, that such arguments can indeed yield certitude. [This work—cited
in, among others, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh IBN RUSHAYYIQ, Asmāʾ muʾallafāt Ibn Taymiyya, ed. Ṣalāḥ
al-Dīn al-Munajjid (incorrectly ascribed to Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya), 2 ed. (Damascus: al-Majmaʿ al-
ʿIlmī al-ʿArabī, 1953), 19 and Muḥammad b. Aḥmad IBN ʿABD AL-HĀDĪ, al-ʿUqūd al-durriyya min
manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad b. Taymiyya, ed. Abī Muṣʿab Ṭalʿat b. Fuʾād al-Ḥulwānī (Cairo: al-
Fārūq al-Ḥadītha, 2002), 37—has unfortunately not come down to us. See Darʾ, I: 22, n. 4.] In the
current work—that is, the Darʾ taʿāruḍ—his goal is to refute the notion of the “rational objection” and
to nullify the position of those who claim that rational proofs and arguments are to be given unqualified
priority over scriptural indicants.
41 Darʾ, I: 80, lines 1-5.

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 Ibn Taymiyya on the Incoherence of the Theologians’ Universal Law

contradict, then the conclusive one must be given preference. It is thus invalid to accord
automatic priority to one category of proof over another. Rather, one must investigate any
two specific pieces of evidence found to be in contradiction on a particular point and take
as preponderant whichever one is definitive (qaṭʿī), or whichever one is more probative
(rājiḥ) if both are less than fully conclusive, regardless of whether the indicant thus
preferred be the scriptural or the rational one. 42 Page | 79
In conclusion, Ibn Taymiyya seeks to replace the binary “reason vs. revelation” with the
alternative binary “knowledge vs. conjecture.” He does so by arguing that discrete
arguments based on either what is considered reason or what is considered authentic
scripture run the entire scale of epistemic warrant from “certain” to “fallacious” and that,
therefore, precedence must in every case be given to whatever argument on a given
question happens to be more probative, regardless from which of the two sources of
knowledge, reason or revelation, we have it. Once Ibn Taymiyya has essentially equated the
two sources—reason and revelation—epistemically while simultaneously subjecting each
discrete element of both categories to a common test of probity, he completes this second
maneuver against the Universal Law by declaring that the issue is not, as everyone seems to
have assumed, reason vs. revelation, but rather knowledge vs. conjecture, certainty vs.
uncertainty, and more probative vs. less probative indications of truth.
Taken together, Arguments 1 through 5—addressing what it means for reason to
“ground” revelation and establishing the crucial binary “knowledge vs. conjecture” as
opposed to “reason vs. revelation”—aim to undermine the main premises upon which the
Universal Law is built.

VII. Not “reason vs. revelation” but “scripturally validated vs.

scripturally non-validated”

Ibn Taymiyya’s insistence that the relevant distinction to be made is between knowledge
and conjecture, rather than between reason (as a category) and revelation (as a category),
has immediate implications for the epistemological status, as well as the religious–moral
evaluation, of various arguments and proofs. In Argument 15,43 Ibn Taymiyya elaborates a
fundamental distinction by means of which he attempts to shift the entire frame of reference
in the debate concerning reason and revelation. According to him, the real issue is not a
question of “scriptural” vs. “rational” (sharʿī ≠ ʿaqlī) proofs and methods, which is how the
debate had almost always been framed by virtually all parties up until his time, but rather a
question of “scripturally validated” vs. “scripturally non-validated” (sharʿī ≠ bidʿī) proofs
and methods. Scripturally validated (sharʿī) proofs, in turn, comprise both revealed (samʿī)
and rational (ʿaqlī) indicants. The sharʿī–bidʿī binary is based, for Ibn Taymiyya, on the fact
that an indicant’s being classed as “scriptural” or “rational” is not in and of itself a property
that entails praise or blame, validity or invalidity. Rather, this merely reveals the way in

42 Ibid., I: 136, line 5 – 137, line 8.

43 See ibid., I: 198-200 for Argument 15 and the full presentation of Ibn Taymiyya’s novel binary “sharʿī
vs. bidʿī ” in place of the more usual “ʿaqlī vs. naqlī ” (or “reason vs. revelation”) dichotomy.

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 Carl Sharif El-Tobgui

which the thing in question has come to be known—either by way of reason or by way of
revelation—even though, when revelation is the source, reason must also be used in
conjunction with it.44
The binary that results from this reclassification of indicants and proofs is no less than
fundamental to Ibn Taymiyya’s thought and methodology. The counterpart of a scriptural
Page | 80 (sharʿī) indicant, he tells us, is not a rational one, but rather an innovated (bidʿī) one, one
that lacks scriptural validation, for it is “innovation” (bidʿa), and not “reason,” that stands
opposite to “scripture” (shirʿa).45 Being “scripturally validated” (sharʿī) is a positive
attribute of an indicant or proof, whereas being “innovated” (bidʿī)—not in the sense of
merely being new, but of lacking scriptural validation—is a negative qualification, for
whatever stands opposed to true revelation (sharīʿa) is of necessity invalid and false. Now,
a scripturally validated (sharʿī) indicant may consist of either a revealed text or a con-
clusion reached through reason, for a proof’s being “scripturally validated” can mean one
of two things, either (1) that revelation has positively affirmed and explicitly indicated it
(kawn al-sharʿ athbatahu wa-dalla ʿalayhi), or (2) that revelation has permitted it and
declared it valid and licit (kawn al-sharʿ abāḥahu wa-adhina fīhi), that is, either by way of
affirmation or of approbation.46
Now, if one uses “scriptural” (sharʿī) according to the first meaning—i.e., that which
scripture has positively affirmed and indicated—then it is possible that the indicant or proof
in question also be knowable through the use of reason, with the role of scripture here being
to point it out (dalla ʿalayhi) and call attention to it (nabbaha ʿalayhi). In this case, the
indicant is classified as a “scripturally validated rational indicant” (sharʿī–ʿaqlī). Ibn
Taymiyya cites as examples of scripturally validated rational indicants things such as the
various parables (amthāl) mentioned in the Qurʾān and other arguments for the oneness of
God and the authenticity of the Prophet, the affirmation of God’s attributes, and similar
matters. All these, affirms Ibn Taymiyya, are proofs whose truth is known by reason—
consisting as they do of rational demonstrations and syllogisms (barāhīn wa-maqāyīs
ʿaqliyya)—yet they are also classified as scripturally validated, in the sense meant here, by
virtue of being mentioned in and explicitly affirmed by the Qurʾān. If, on the other hand, a
given scripturally validated indicant is known exclusively through the texts of revelation,
then it is classified as a “scripturally validated revealed indicant” (sharʿī–samʿī). In
summary, then, valid scriptural indicants are categorized as either “scriptural–rational”
(sharʿī–ʿaqlī) or “scriptural–revealed” (sharʿī–samʿī), that is, scripturally validated rational
indicants or scripturally validated revealed indicants.
Many kalām theologians, Ibn Taymiyya insists, have made the error of presuming that
the category of scriptural indicants consists exclusively of this second type of indicant
(sharʿī–samʿī)—namely, that which can only be known through the texts of revelation—and
that revelation is only capable of functioning as an indicant (dalīl) of something in this

44 In order, Ibn Taymiyya seems to imply, to determine that something is actually a part of authentic revel-
ation and, having done so, properly to understand the import thereof. In other words, reason is employed
in the determination of both the authenticity and reliability (thubūt) of the revealed texts and the
meaning (dalāla) thereof, as we have discussed in the preceding section.
45 “idh al-bidʿa tuqābilu ’l-shirʿa.” Ibid., I: 198, line 6.
46 See ibid., I: 198, lines 3-9.

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 Ibn Taymiyya on the Incoherence of the Theologians’ Universal Law

manner, that is, purely by informing us of matters of which we could otherwise have no
knowledge. For this reason, they separate the “fundamentals of faith” (uṣūl al-dīn) into two
categories, rational and scriptural, and define the rational strictly as that which is not, and
cannot be, known by means of revelation (and, conversely, define the scriptural strictly as
that which is not, and cannot be, known by means of reason). Yet they are erroneous in
doing so, Ibn Taymiyya insists, for the Qurʾān also employs, indicates, and draws attention Page | 81
to rational indicants. Indeed, some of what is classified as “rational indicants” comprises
that which can be inferred by reason on the basis of empirical evidence, 47 and the Qurʾān
itself indicates this in verses such as: “We shall show them Our signs in the horizons and in
themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the Truth. Is it not sufficient that thy
Lord is witness to all things?”48 The purpose of a verse such as this one, we understand, is
to advance a rational argument for the existence of God based on the existence and nature
of the empirical world around us.
If, however, one uses the term “scriptural” or “scripturally validated” (sharʿī) according
to the second meaning mentioned above—i.e., that which scripture has permitted and
deemed licit (though has not itself positively affirmed or established)—then this category,
according to Ibn Taymiyya, comprises several subcategories, namely: that which has
reached us of the authenticated prophetic Sunna; that to which the Qurʾān has drawn
attention and indicated in terms of rational proofs and arguments; and, finally, that which
can be inferred on the basis of our empirical observation of existent things (mā dallat
ʿalayhi wa-shahidat bihi al-mawjūdāt), elevating hereby empirical observation to the
category of sharʿī, or scripturally validated, evidence as well.49
By way of summary, an indicant that is scripturally validated (dalīl sharʿī) may not be
contradicted by or subordinated to one that is not scripturally validated (ghayr sharʿī). As
for indicants that are either rational (ʿaqlī) or have the nature of a transmitted report (samʿī)
but that are not scripturally validated (sharʿī),50 such indicants may sometimes outweigh
countervailing evidence and sometimes themselves be outweighed, sometimes valid and
sometimes invalid.51 As for the statements of authentic revelation, both declarative and
imperative, these may not be overridden or contradicted (yuʿāraḍ) by anything.
Unfortunately, however, there are those who include in the category of “scriptural proofs
and indicants” (adilla sharʿiyya) that which does not belong to it (i.e., specious and invalid
rational arguments), as there are those who exclude from it that which is, in fact, a proper
subcategory of it—such as, we may assume, scripturally validated rational (sharʿī–ʿaqlī)
arguments, an important category of sharʿī indicants which Ibn Taymiyya blames the kalām

47 “wa-in kāna min al-adilla al-ʿaqliyya mā yuʿlamu bi’l-ʿiyān wa-lawāzimihi.” Ibid., I: 199, lines 9-10.
48 Q. Fuṣṣilat 41:53. See Darʾ, I: 198, line 9 – 199, line 12.
49 See ibid., I: 199, lines 13-14.
50 Such as, for example, a historical or other sort of “report” or piece of information that is neither af-
firmed, nor denied, nor addressed by revelation in any way.
51 As in the case of rational arguments containing false premises or built on invalid inferences, or ḥadīth
texts transmitted as putative revelation but found, upon investigation and criticism, to be inauthentic.

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 Carl Sharif El-Tobgui

theologians for having made the fundamental error of excluding from the category of
scriptural proofs.52
In conclusion, then, Ibn Taymiyya completes his bid to redefine the terms of the debate
on reason and revelation through proposing now a third conceptual shift: namely, that
proofs are not diametrically opposed in terms of being “scriptural” (sharʿī) versus “rational”
Page | 82 (ʿaqlī), but rather in terms of being “scripturally legitimated” (sharʿī) versus “scripturally
non-legitimated” (bidʿī). The category of scripturally legitimated (sharʿī) proofs, he argues,
comprises both the authentic texts of revelation properly comprehended and valid rational
arguments built on sound premises. Ibn Taymiyya thus attempts to divide what passes for
“reason” against itself into two categories—valid/true and invalid/false—and to absorb the
first part, i.e., that which is valid,53 into the larger umbrella category of scripturally
legitimated (sharʿī) proofs. Through his rigorous insistence on the epistemic quality of a
proof to the exclusion of all other considerations—including whether the proof originates in
revelation or in reason—Ibn Taymiyya attempts to circumvent the rigid categories of
“reason” taken as all of a piece and “revelation” taken as all of a piece, subjecting instead
each discrete element of both categories to a common test of epistemic warrant, then
asserting that revelation approves and legitimates everything that is true and certain and
abjures everything that is false and unfounded—regardless whether it originates in reason
or what is claimed to be divine revelation.

VIII. Concluding summary

To summarize, Ibn Taymiyya, as we have seen in Sections V through VII above, makes
three fundamental moves in his attempt to refute the Universal Law. He first implodes the
fixed categories of “revelation” and “reason” by lining up all the discrete elements of both
on a par. He then insists that each discrete element, whether from reason or from revelation,
be individually investigated for its probative value, thus replacing the binary “reason vs.
revelation” (ʿaql–naql) with the binary “knowledge vs. conjecture” (ʿilm–ẓann) or “more
certain vs. less certain” (rājiḥ–marjūḥ) indicants of truth. Finally, he subsumes valid
rational argumentation based on sound premises under the larger category of “scripturally
validated” (sharʿī) proofs, making of them a new category he terms “scriptural–rational”
(sharʿī–ʿaqlī), the counterpart of the “scriptural–revealed” (sharʿī–samʿī). By these three
maneuvers, Ibn Taymiyya seeks to tear down the canvas altogether, so to speak, and to
redraw from scratch the very terms of the debate surrounding reason and revelation in
medieval Islam. He attempts this tour de force by first poking holes in all the major
assumptions upon which the Universal Law is based, and then redefining the categories
themselves in terms of which the whole question of “reason and revelation” had been
conceived and debated up to his time.

52 See ibid., I: 200, line 8ff.

53 What exactly constitutes valid and invalid reasoning and rational proofs for Ibn Taymiyya deserves a
separate study and cannot be taken up in detail here.

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 Ibn Taymiyya on the Incoherence of the Theologians’ Universal Law

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© Carl Sharif El-Tobgui, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA

◄ eltobgui@brandeis.edu ►

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